


An Ending of Sorts

by OneRandomThing



Category: Rabbits (Podcast), The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: A more conclusive ending to the podcast, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Season/Series 03, Sort Of, not necessarily happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-03-26 18:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19011433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneRandomThing/pseuds/OneRandomThing
Summary: Alex stands in the airport with two boarding passes as she contemplates the events to come and the futility of choice. Strand stands with her, making the same decision.Carly Parker witnesses firsthand what happens when no one wins the game.





	1. A Decision

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have much to say for this save that I wanted the Black Tapes to have an actual ending, so here's what I have. I hope you enjoy.

_Does it even matter?_ Alex thought as she watched the scenery passing by through the car window. She and Strand hadn’t spoken a word since she’d made her proposal, giving him one of the tickets she had purchased and in turn taking one of his. A glance towards Strand showed that his hands were still white-knuckled on the steering wheel. 

They’d spoken, they’d eaten dinner, they’d packed, and then they’d gotten in the car and left. Alex had given Nic most of the episode to finish, but the last part she would put in herself. No point in him worrying about her. No point in letting him try and stop her, wherever she went. 

Strand took a breath and Alex shot him another look, waiting for him to speak, to say something, anything. If Alex was honest with herself, which was something she’d been trying to get better at, she knew that she wasn’t going to win with him. Geneva held answers, it held the Advocate, it held Coralee, and, against all odds, it held his father; everything he wanted, he needed. All Alex could offer was an escape, and in the years she’d known Strand, when had she ever known him to take the easy way out? Alex laughed at herself internally, turning back towards the window, the taste of red wine still fresh on her tongue. Would it even matter which plane they chose? Was there anything else they could do? 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They were silent as they parked. Alex and Strand both sat for a moment, frozen in time, as the car went silent save for the jingling of keys being removed from the ignition. And then the moment was over and Strand opened his door, Alex following suit a moment later. They grabbed their bags and made their way to the entrance. Neither of them had packed much, knowing that wherever they went there was little need for what they had. A change of clothes, a toothbrush, her phone, and her recorder, along with a few other essentials and odds and ends. Years of journalism had taught Alex exactly how much to pack whenever she traveled. _But what about my house, who’s going to take care of that?_ Alex found herself thinking as she walked into the door, air conditioning blasting her for a moment before subsiding and giving way to the stale air of the airport. She couldn’t help but think of Strand’s own house, the one that used to be his father’s. She remembered just how much had been left after his father’s… “supposed” death. And unlike him, she didn’t have any children to come clean up the mess. No spouse, no siblings, not even a boyfriend. She supposed her parents may come out if it came to that, but when would that be? How long would it take for someone to notice that she wouldn’t be coming back? Would there be anyone to notice? The tickets seemed to burn in her pocket as she ran her fingers over the edges, reassuring herself that they were both there, that she still had a choice (for what little that still counted for). 

What else did the Advocate -- did Thomas Warren -- need with Strand? As far as Alex could tell, he had already won; his machines had been spread throughout the world, those loyal to him -- those willing to give their lives for him -- were everywhere, all those children like Simon and Sebastian and the countless others who lay awake at night with shadows standing over their beds and sacred geometry carved below. And then there was Strand. As far as Alex could tell, he didn’t fit; he held no loyalty to Warren, he couldn’t bilocate like Simon nor were any shadows attached to him like Sebastian. He was simply… Strand. And as strange and inexplicable as the case of the boy in the river had been… nothing else had come of it. And if it was his blood that Warren was after, well, his resources and contacts stretched far enough and he’d been watching Strand for long enough that it would have been child’s play to pay off a nurse or a blood bank volunteer. And as for the rest; the Horn of Tiamat, the Mysterium, the Axis Mundi, the Unsound… did that even really matter? They’d already found out that the Unsound and the rest of the Mysterium were simply the sounds of the accelerator as Warren performed his experiments, the Axis Mundi, if it truly had just been the IP address of the studio computer, was in the past now, her and Nic having already played the entirety of the Mysterium, or really just the accelerator noises, through that computer, broadcasting it for whoever cared to listen. And the Horn of Tiamat… if they had copies, then what use was the original to them? Sheet music or poem or sacred geometry or whatever it was, certainly the information was what was valuable, not the paper it was printed on. So much of their supposed “investigation” had just been a bunch of loosely related leads, leads that, for the most part, went nowhere, or fizzled out, or vanished. 

Alex yawned as they moved another step forward in the line for security. Absently, she noticed Strand’s hand fidgeting in his own pocket, no doubt contemplating which ticket he would use and which would be deposited in the nearest trash can. That alone was more than Alex had been expecting of him. Was Strand thinking of letting all those answers go? Was he thinking the same things she was, how futile it all was? Alex blinked a few times as her vision started to go fuzzy; she’d only managed a little over an hour of sleep the night before, too afraid of shadows and cats and women with too-wide mouths to do much more, and she could only convince herself that the knocking in the walls was old pipes for so long. 

The people around her milled about, tired, excited, anxious, impatient, human, unaware of how little time they may have left. Alex wondered about that too. If they went to Geneva, if Strand delivered himself into Warren’s waiting hands, how long would they have before every gate was opened and the world was flooded with darkness? And what if they didn’t? If they got on the other plane and abandoned everything else? Alex would turn off her phone and recorder and sit and wait in some remote cabin with Strand, waiting for whatever came next, that much she planned on. How long would they have until Warren figured out how to do it without Strand? A year? A month? A day? How long would they have with just the two of them?

Alex still didn’t know how to feel about Nic’s question, demanding to know if she was in love with Strand. It had been out of the blue and Alex didn’t know how to answer. She’d been so busy with work and trying to fix her life that romance had fallen to the wayside in the past years. Sure, she could still appreciate men, maybe flirt over a drink or two at a bar at night if she were in the right mindset, but it had been years since anything serious. And with Strand… with Richard… she’d thought of them as colleagues, maybe friends, but beyond that? 

“Boarding pass and ID please” The man at the security booth asked. Alex jumped, finding Strand walking towards the conveyor belts and slinging his bag into a bin. Alex fished out a ticket at random along with her ID, handing it to the man. He looked over her and the items with apathy, stamping the boarding pass after a moment and handing it back to her before waving forward the person behind her. Alex stuffed her ID and boarding pass back into her pocket without looking at them. She still had time to choose. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gate for the plane to Geneva lay on one side of the airport, and the gate to their escape the opposite. Strand waited for her as she put her shoes and jacket back on and grabbed her bag. Without speaking, they both stopped at some overpriced coffee shop that lay between the two concourses, both knowing they were doing nothing more than stalling. 

“What do you want, Alex?” Strand asked, speaking for the first time since she’d made her offer back at the house, over two hours ago at this point. Alex was silent as she thought, waiting for her coffee. 

“I don’t know.” She answered finally, mostly truthful. She knew she wanted answers, and she knew she wanted to live to see another day, but she also knew that she couldn’t necessarily have both, or either, depending on how things played out. 

“What about you?” Alex asked in return, retrieving her coffee and retreating back to a table with Strand. He took a moment to think. 

“I don’t know.” He replied in kind. Alex looked at him. Strand didn’t look back at her. He was tired, that much she could tell by the dark circles under his eyes and the pallor in his face. Alex knew she looked much the same, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was just as much of an insomniac as she was nowadays. 

“Do you think they’re really in Geneva, Coralee and your father?” Alex asked, retreating back into her reporter persona. It was so much safer and so much easier than just being Alex Reagan right now. Strand took a breath, still staring at his coffee. 

“Yes, I do. And I think there’s a lot more there too.” Strand replied, finally taking a sip of his still-steaming coffee. 

“Like what?” Alex asked, still watching him. Strand offered a shrug, something she wasn’t quite used to from him. 

“Like whatever Warren has been planning and everything that goes into that, among other things.” Strand replied easily. Alex nodded and took a sip from her own cup, burning her tongue in the process but barely noticing. 

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” Strand asked, finally meeting her eyes. 

“Why do you think Warren wants you in Geneva?” Alex asked. Strand opened his mouth to reply, no doubt wanting to say that he had simply been invited as a speaker, that there was no sinister ulterior motive at play and that it was ridiculous to even entertain such an idea, but he closed it after a beat. 

“I don’t know.” Strand admitted after a moment. Alex let herself fall silent too. _I don’t know either._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They stood between the entrances to the two concourses, stuck in time. Both flights left within fifteen minutes of each other and they didn’t have much time left to choose before the choice was made for them, but still, they stood, uncaring about the people that passed them by and the ticking of the clock overhead on the board constantly updating with flight numbers and locations and times, their two waiting up there, awaiting their decision. 

Alex held her ticket in her hand, a trash can only a few steps away. In the end, Alex knew that this wasn’t her choice, had never been her choice. Sure, she had been the one to find the ticket, been the one to buy them and print them, been the one to give the option to Strand, but ultimately, he was the one who had to choose. So Alex watched him as he stared up at the board, watching the flights as the clock ticked, time marching ever forward. And then he stopped, and he looked at her. Carefully, he pulled one ticket out of her hands, taking the matching one of his own, and deposited them in the trashcan, carefully taking one of Alex’s hands and making the decision. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex and Richard (she had finally broken her habit of calling him Strand) sat on the front porch of a cabin far, far away from anything either of them knew. Alex had turned off her phone and left her recorder buried in some drawer, forgotten. Her laptop had been similarly abandoned as soon as she finished the final episode and uploaded it, not waiting for any response from Nic or anyone else. Alex knew Richard had done much the same, abandoning his phone and laptop and detaching himself from the world around them. 

It had been weeks since they’d arrived, still adjusting to the state of things and their changing relationship, but in a way… Alex was happy. Without the Black Tapes, without her show, without Simon, and Warren, and Coralee, there was just them in a way there had never been before. Alex still thought Nic’s suggestion of this trip as nothing more than some romantic rendezvous was still wildly off base, but these past few weeks… Alex couldn’t help but admit that there was something between her and Richard, something more than common interests or friendships. And where before Richard had been callous and dismissive, he started to listen as they talked less about the Black Tapes and more about themselves. For the first time in a long time, Alex found herself sleeping through the night, unafraid of shadows and cats and women with too-wide mouths. Richard looked better too, the circles under his eyes gone and the pallor in his face replaced with a healthy color. For the first time in a long time, Alex was at peace. The world faded until it was just the two of them in their lonesome cabin. Sure, they’d made a few trips to the nearby town to get food and other essentials, but that was all. As far as anything mattered, the world only contained the two of them. 

Richard joined her out on the porch in the early morning, two mugs of coffee in hand as he sat, handing one off to her, and looked out to watch the sunrise. Without hesitation, without fear, without second-guessing herself, Alex took Richard’s hand, interlacing her fingers with his easily. And as noise that could almost pass for music broke through the silence, as shadows rose from between the trees, as the sky darkened until not even the stars could be seen, Alex knew they had made the right choice, the only one they still could.


	2. X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carly Parker witnesses firsthand what happens when no one wins the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally listened to Rabbits and thought I might do a more conclusive for that too and have it tie in to the one I did for the Black Tapes since they take place in the same world. Shorter than the first chapter, but that may change. Enjoy!

If someone had asked Carly Parker just how long she’d stood, staring at the leaderboard for that mysterious game that claimed to be Stargate, she would not have an answer. Before then, she had plausible deniability; everything could have been a drug-induced dream and the result of long-term and very complicated manipulation by a sick individual. And most of Carly wanted to believe that now. She wanted to believe that Rabbits wasn’t real, that IX never happened, that Yumiko never fell victim to some game that was as old as humanity. And until now, there was so much that supported that theory (or delusion); Yumiko’s amnesia, Hazel’s disappearance, the LSD found in her system. She’d come to see if the Magician could still give her answers, but his disappearance seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for this long delusion. Until it didn’t. Until Carly found that damned leaderboard hidden in the mystery arcade cabinet. Until Carly found herself looking at the beginnings of X. 

So she left. She took a final look at that leaderboard, reading over those names that had been so mysterious but now included her own pseudonym, and she left. Part of her wanted to call Yumiko. Part of her wanted to call the person she now knows to be Hazel. Part of her wanted to run and keep running and never look back. Carly went home. 

When she woke up the next morning, Carly was almost more exhausted than she’d been when she went to sleep. She’d spent a good chunk of the night trying to chase down her old leads and contacts, everything that held proof of the existence of Rabbits. But, much like the Magician, they were gone without a trace. Alan Scarpio was still around, but still in the hospital and in a coma from which he would never wake up. And sure, the Marigold recordings still existed in a few places, but the most relevant ones were gone and the rest were too weird and cryptic to be considered proof. So, for lack of anything else to do, Carly moved on. 

\--------------------

The next few months were strangely empty for Carly. She landed a job on another show at Pacific Northwest Stories, and it was alright. She enjoyed her work, but things were… different. The most obvious answer for this would be Yumiko; she and Carly had drifted apart after everything, and Yumiko’s strange insistence that nothing had happened and complete inability to remember anything related to Rabbits or IX didn’t help the situation. 

The other, less obvious, answer was that Carly was still playing the game. Well, maybe spectating would be more accurate, but nonetheless, she was still in. Not like before, of course; she had a life outside of the game that she had to maintain, but so much of her was still afraid that X really had started, that she couldn’t help it. And every time she stopped, all she could think about were ribbons in a stream being torn to pieces by the current. 

The rational part of her brain still insisted that everything had been a setup; actors and drugs and manipulation. The rest of her was afraid, which was why she had three different anagram makers bookmarked on her laptop, searched the app store daily for Breadcrumbs (the app had deleted itself from her phone, as suddenly and quietly as it had shown up) and, most importantly and most controversially, she messaged Concernicus Jones. Hazel. But there was nothing. 

Every once in a while, out of the corner of her eye, Carly would swear she saw a warden or two or three. And she would freeze. And she would turn. Only to find normal people doing normal things, their clothes bright and without a trace of gray, their faces easily visible. And then Carly would keep walking, just a little faster than before. 

One day, after all these months of what could almost be called normalcy, she made her way back to the little coffee shop that had taken over the place where the Magician had supposedly once been. Call it desperation or paranoia or something else that Carly couldn’t quite name, but she found herself face-to-face with that same arcade cabinet. 

It stood out against the empty room, the unmarked black of the cabinet and the brightness of the title screen. It still read Stargate, not Defender II (the memory board that had Yumiko’s face programmed in was long gone). Absently, she performed the same easter-egg trick that her brother had shown her all those years ago. And there it was. 

The leaderboard was the same at first: names listed in slots I-VII, Hazel’s name newly placed in VIII, Parker Carlson taking IX, but now-

Carly’s blood turned to ice. X was no longer blank. Now, there was a dash. The game was over. And no one had won. 

Carly ran. She pulled the plug on the machine and she ran, trying to ignore the fact that the moment before the screen went dark, it showed a moonrise. Carly ran faster. 

\--------------------

She locked the door the moment after she made it inside. The entire way, she kept seeing moonrise after moonrise after moonrise. Something was wrong, _something was wrong_. The game was over and no one had won and now something was so, _so_ very wrong. And then Carly heard a ping. 

Concernicus Jones had messaged her on Chatcat. 

_I’m sorry. I tried._

Then, as the world started to go dark around her, a sound that could almost be considered music starting to come from everywhere and nowhere, Carly felt herself slip. And she could only think of ribbons in a stream.


End file.
